Infographics (Attempt To) Predict The Oscars

The folks over at online analysis service Meltwater, who Wired’s Epicenter hilariously called out for not doing so hot at predicting the The Grammys, have once again tried to use “chatter in social media” or whatever the hell that means to predict who will win the 83rd Annual Academy Awards tonight. Their call? The King’s Speech, followed by Inception for Best Picture, James Franco followed by Colin Firth for Best Actor and Natalie Portman by a landslide for Best Actress, trailed by Nicole Kidman.

Meanwhile over at Mashable we’ve got another infographic bet on Inception winning for Best Picture, followed by The Social Network, James Franco as Best Actor, followed by Colin Firth, Natalie Portman (our only consensus) as leading actress followed by Nicole Kidman, Christian Bale as Supporting Actor, followed by Geoffry Rush, Helena Bonham Carter as Supporting Actress and David Fincher as Best Director for The Social Network, followed by Tom Hooper from The King’s Speech.

And while there are countless others, where would a discussion about infographics be without a check-in with the ambitious Online Schoolswho should give up on whatever they do and just go into the infographics business altogether have made an Oscar’s “Cheat Sheet” based on critics pics (which surely should be worth more than social media reach). Critics favored The Kings Speech, followed by The Social Network for Best Picture, David Fincher followed by Tom Hooper for Best Director, Colin Firth for Best Actor and Natalie Portman for Best Actress and so on and so forth

In my opinion anything on a infographic should be taken with a grain of salt, but especially an infographic about Facebook and Twitter shares predicting winners. This kind of analysis will always fail to take things into account like how James Franco might have gotten more social media mentions because aside from being a nominee, he is also the show’s host (I’m rooting for you Colin Firth!). Anyways, I’m pretty sure a majority of the Academy’s 5,755 voting members are not on Twitter and aren’t using a “social buzz” as a deciding factor.

You really want a heads up as to who the real Oscar winner will be? Check out this informative infographic about the price of Oscars media buys.